For Christ when he was small,
And think the while she frosted it,
How quickly boys grow tall?
Oh sometimes years are very long,
And sometimes years run fast,
And when the Christ had put away
Small, earthly things at last,
And died upon a wooden cross
One afternoon in spring,
Did Mary find the little toy,
And sit...remembering?
-Helen Welshimer, "The Birthday"
Today we come to pause before the fourth station of the cross. There are only two stations when Jesus stopped and addressed someone. In this fourth station Jesus confronted his mother. In his pain he said nothing. But from the Cross at the top of the hill he would look down and see his still weeping mother. It must have broken his heart—but he spoke to her: “Woman, behold your son.” And then to John, “Behold your mother.” There at the end he gave Mary to John and John to Mary.
Why did the church add this fourth station? In a sexist world where women counted for little—the church was far ahead of its time. Further ahead than it knew. For the Gospel and the whole of the Bible is peppered with Sarah’s and Ruth’s and Naomi’s and Elizabeth’s and Anna's and Mary’s and Martha’s and, as Mark put it “the other women.” Perhaps he said this because there were too many to name.
I wonder if this isn’t a word to some old bag lady digging through a garbage can looking for food or treasures. I wonder if it isn’t a word to some single mother of three who has been up since five at McDonald’s serving coffee and sausage biscuits? And I wonder if this is not a word for all those scared and frightened women who must decide if they go to the abortion clinic or not. Could these words address all those who burkas and are confined to houses unless some man says otherwise. And would this station take in the battered and abused women who live always in quiet desperation. Not to speak of all those mothers who have lost sons and daughters in this war that seems to have no end.
Dorothy Sayers imagines the fourth station this way: In her imagination he has Mary speaking to Jesus:
“My child. When he was small, I washed and fed him; I dressed him in his little garments and combed the rings of his hair. When he cried, I comforted him; when he was hurt, I kissed away the pain; and when the darkness fell, I sang him to sleep. Now he goes faint and fasting n the dust, and his hair is tangled with thorns. They will strip him naked to the sun and hammer the nails into his living flesh, and the great darkness will cover him. And there is nothing I can do. Nothing at all. This is the worst thing; to conceive beauty in your heart and bring it forth into the world, and then to strand by helpless and watch it suffer...”
And so maybe our task is to console all those who need consolation in our time. Maybe our task is to make sure that women are safe and have the same opportunities as men. We still have a long way to go. Maybe it means to stand up and say: “No more!” wherever women know injustice and maltreatment.
Ponder the mystery of the fourth station. Jesus confronts his mother. It is a word of compassion and reconciliation. It is to be a gracious word for a most ungracious time. It means that they really will know who we are and what we do if we really, really love one another.
No comments:
Post a Comment